US stocks tumble; Dow down over 240 points

NEW YORK: US stocks tumbled on Wednesday as investors worried about the growing Japan nuclear crisis and tensions in the Arab world, as well as weak US economic data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a sharp triple-digit fall, sinking 242.12 points (2.04 percent) to finish at 11,613.30. The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite plummeted 50.51 points (1.89 percent) to 2,616.82, while the broad-market S&P 500 index shed 24.99 points (1.95 percent) at 1,256.88. The 30-stock blue-chip Dow has lost more than 487 points over three days of trading as investors struggled to grasp the impact of Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami in Japan, the world's third-largest economy. After opening in negative territory, Wall Street stocks spent the day battling choppy trade amid uncertainty about the future of the global economic recovery. "Disappointing economic data and incr...